their fiery floods of
lava, their incessant explosions, their fierce outbursts of flames,
and overhead there rolled a dense black canopy of smoke--altogether
forming a terrific approach to that unknown and awful pathway upon
which we were going. So we passed this dread portal, and then there
lay before us--what? Was it a land of life or a land of death? Who
could say?

It was evening when we passed through. Night came on, and the darkness
was illuminated by the fiery glow of the volcanic flames. Worn out
with fatigue, we fell asleep. So the night passed, and the current
bore us on until, at length, the morning came. We awoke, and now, for
the first time in many days, we saw the face of the sun. The clouds
had at last broken, the sky was clear, and behind us the sun was
shining. That sight told us all. It showed us where we were going.

I pointed to the sun.

"Look there," said I. "There is the sun in the northern sky--behind
us. We have been drifting steadily toward the south."

At this Agnew was silent, and sat looking back for a long time. There
we could still see the glow of the volcanic fires, though they were
now many miles away; while the sun, but lately risen, was lying on a
course closer to the horizon than we had ever seen it before.

"We are going south," said I--"to the South Pole. This swift current
can have but one ending--there may be an opening at the South Pole, or
a whirlpool like the Maelstrom."

Agnew looked around with a smile.

"All these notions," said he, "are dreams, or theories, or guesses.
There is no evidence to prove them. Why trouble yourself about a
guess? You and I can guess, and with better reason; for we have now,
it seems, come farther south than any human being who has ever lived.
Do not imagine that the surface of the earth is different at the poles
from what it is anywhere else. If we get to the South Pole we shall
see there what we have always seen--the open view of land or water,
and the boundary of the horizon. As for this current, it seems to me
like the Gulf Stream, and it evidently does an important work in the
movement of the ocean waters. It pours on through vast fields of ice
on its way to other oceans, where it will probably become united with
new currents. Theories about openings at the poles, or whirlpools,
must be given up. Since the Maelstrom has been found to be a fiction,
no one need believe in any other whirlpool. For my own part, I now
believe that this cu